Sadly, misogyny takes many forms. Bias rarely announces itself honestly and directly. It often hides itself inside phrases such as “not a good fit”, “too aggressive”, “not executive enough”, or “not warm enough”.
As an example, Akinyi led a regional operations team based in Kisumu. Colleagues and management initially praised her discipline, speed, and the results she achieved.
However, the praise often came with a hidden sting. Some labeled her as “too tough” for a woman while others quietly but persistently preferred a male deputy whose performance numbers lagged Akinyi’s but whose confidence and demeanor somehow felt more “natural” to colleagues.
While Akinyi could clearly lead, what unsettled colleagues had less to do with competence and more to do with old outdated expectations about who and what type of people should sound firm, who should act nurturing, and above all, who should occupy authority roles without making others unjustifiably unconformable.
A study from 2024 that has now become famous was conducted by María Triana, Ruixiang Song, Cyril Um, and Lei Huang that helped explain the deep psychological science behind why such disturbing patterns persist in management.
The research utilised role congruity theory to assess workplace settings. The theory carries a simple but still powerful idea in that prejudice can emerge and rear its ugly head when society’s stereotypes about a social group clash with what people expect.
The role congruity theory becomes even more pronounced when colleagues look at someone in a stereotyped group having a leadership role.
While gender bias causes major issues in role congruity theory, so do other prejudices such as age bias with colleagues not expecting wisdom from young workers or older employees not being expected to innovate, along with other biases on physical appearance, race, etc. Often, people imagine that they are simply judging performance fairly but in reality, hidden role expectations frequently shape who gets trusted, promoted, or doubted.
Human beings carry two kinds of expectations in their minds. The first kind concerns what people think that members of a particular group usually do and behave.
The second type regards what people think such people ought to do. Trouble originates from when either of those held expectations collide with an unwritten script that gets mentally attached to a management job.
A leader often gets associated with various adjectives such as decisive, firm, authoritative, and so forth. But if the observer still associates women, for example, with outdated notions of required softness, deference, and kindness, then the female manager can suffer from an unfortunate double bind.
If she chooses to act gently, then people may question her readiness to be a leader. But on the other hand, if she acts decisively, people may dislike her for violating their gender biased expectations.
The role congruity theory helps to explain the unfair double standard whereby a direct talking male boss may get viewed as strong but a direct talking female manager may be seen as abrasive.
The study shows that role incongruity does more than distort perceptions, it goes deeper to shape hiring, promotions, terminations, compensation, investor funding of startup ventures, and even career derailment.
So, stereotypes do not simply stay inside people’s heads and then appear through snide remarks. They actually affect sweeping aspects of one’s professional life.
Sadly, when someone notices that others in the workplace are viewing them through incongruent lenses, then they subconsciously often start to moderate their behaviour to become that version that is expected of them.
In so doing, some even withdraw from leadership paths altogether. It can slowly reshape someone’s own confidence and behavioural choices.
So, what can be done? Leaders need structure promotion criteria with objective measures, stronger interview discipline with specific things to watch out for to check and mitigate bias, and more honest reflection, training, and tools about how stereotypes operate.
Organisations also need to notice how role congruity theory may affect far more than just gender, race, ethnicity, and socio-economic backgrounds but also age, accents, motherhood, disability, and professional identity, among many others, that can cloud workplace judgement.
Once organisations accept that bias often comes dressed as common sense, they can start making fairer decisions that will enhance staff performance and grow firm profits.
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